Overnight
by mooyoo
Summary: He’s going to rage at Lincoln whenever he finally shows up. He’ll yell and curse and hit him and do all the things his mother tells them both not to do because she’s gone now and Lincoln isn’t here.


**Title:** Overnight  
**Fandom:** Prison Break  
**Characters:** Michael, Lincoln  
**Prompt:** 030: Death.  
**Word Count:** 2,169  
**Rating:** PGish  
**Summary:** He's going to rage at Lincoln whenever he finally shows up. He'll yell and curse and hit him and do all the things his mother tells them both not to do because she's gone now and Lincoln isn't here.

**Disclaimer:** Paul Scheuring and a whole lot of other people who aren't me own _Prison Break_.

-

Michael's up and out of bed with the first crashing **_THWUMP_**, stumbling across his dark room and out into the hallway before he's even awake. He makes it to his mother's room on instinct, only fully awake and conscious once he sees her kneeling on the floor next to her bed.

She's bent over, one hand fisting in the sheets next to her, the other covering her mouth as she coughs and hacks and struggles to suck in air. Michael's frozen, still standing just inside the doorway, watching her fighting, trying to breathe, sees the splatters of blood across the bed and the floor and her shirt and her hands, and his heart won't slow down enough to let him move forward. He's blank, can't even think anything, panic burning its way through him until she gives another loud **_HACK_** and falls forward onto her hands and knees and suddenly his mind snaps and he dashes towards her, mind racing now.

"Mom? Mom, mom, _mom_, what's – "

Her coughing gets louder, drowning out his words, and Michael crouches down to put a hand on her back. She keeps coughing and wheezing and for a moment he's not even sure she knows he's there. He's rubbing her back, like she does to him whenever he's sick or upset or frightened. It's always made him feel better, and he wants to be like her, but he knows this isn't enough. She's coughing, hacking, gasping, sputtering droplets of blood that are splattering against his knees and one of his hands, and this is bad, bad, bad. She grabs onto his free hand, clenches it with every stuttering attempt to breathe in, and he's so very, very scared.

"Lincoln, I'm gonna get Lincoln, Mom, I'll be right back, he'll know what to do, I'll be right back." He lets go of her hand and leaps up, running through the door and back down the hall.

"Lincoln!" He bursts through his brother's door and stops short when he sees that his brother isn't there. His eyes search wildly for a moment, not sure what to do. The bed is messy, but doesn't look slept in, and he's sure Lincoln hasn't been home all night. He stands there for another beat, mind blank again, not sure what to do, before he spins around and tears back into the hallway, bare feet slapping against the stale wooden floors.

Michael grabs the phone from its table in the hallway and almost drops it as he dials 911. He listens to the rings, minutes stretching endlessly as he waits for someone to pick up. He's standing still finally, but it still feels like his body is vibrating from his pounding heart.

Finally, _finally_ there's a voice on the other line, and Michael's speaking before it can even finish asking what the problem is.

"My mom's sick, she's coughing, I think she can't breathe, there's blood, she needs help, I don't know what to do, please, she's coughing up blood, pleasepleasehelpplease, I'm alone, and, and – "

The voice manages to interrupt him, tells him to calm down, take a deep breath, help is coming. Michael rattles of their address, not really listening the voice on the other end telling him to stay on the line, and leans out, stretching the phone cord away from its socket in the wall, glancing through his mother's doorway.

The phone clatters to the floor, anonymous voice on the other end calling after him, asking if he's okay as Michael runs back into his mother's bedroom. She's lying curled up on the floor now, no longer coughing, making no more noise at all, in fact, and Michael kneels next to her, shaking her carefully by the shoulder.

"Mom? Mommy, Mom, are, are you…" His shaking goes from gentle to frantic, but she doesn't respond, doesn't move. Her eyes are wide open, and Michael knows she's not really seeing him, but he rolls her onto her back and looks into her face and keeps talking, hoping she'll focus, look at him, smile and apologize for worrying him and send him back off to bed because he has school tomorrow and he shouldn't be up at this hour and she's fine, it's no big deal, don't worry about it, not that much blood, really.

"Mom, please, please, _Mom!_ Please, wake up, say something, Mommy please, please don't…" A sob escapes him against his will, but he won't let himself cry, can't loose it now. He doesn't know what to do, and her chest isn't moving, and her eyes aren't seeing and she's lying very, very still, but he won't loose it, he won't.

His eyes fix on the trail of blood that streaks down her cheek starting from the corner of her mouth, notices how deeply red it is against her much too pale skin. He touches her cheek softly, runs his fingers through the blood, and brokenly whispers, "…Mom?"

There's a sudden bang and a crash down the hallway and almost out of nowhere two paramedics burst into the room and settle next to him, dropping bags on the floor and sweeping hands across his mother's face and chest and stomach.

One of them turns to Michael and gently pulls him away, walks him a few feet away and glances at his partner quickly before asking, "Can you tell me what happened?"

Michael shakes his head, frantic, tears brimming eyes that are still fixed upon his mother on the floor. "She, um, she, she was coughing, I woke up and heard her coughing, and she was on the floor and there was blood and she can't breathe I think, I didn't, didn't know what to do, she couldn't stop coughing, and then, and then she did and – "

"Okay, okay," the man soothes, squeezing Michael's shoulder. "How long has she been sick? Has anything like this happened before?"

"She, she has cancer, she's been sick for a while, but she's doing chemotherapy, they said she's getting better, she was fine earlier, when I went to bed."

The other paramedic yells for his partner and Michael is left alone, leaning against the wall and watching the two men push against his mother's chest and breathe into her mouth. Michael slides down to sit on the floor and pulls his knees up against himself. His chest is stony with fear as he watches them work on her and he wonders where his brother is.

They spend long minutes doing things that he can't understand and giving each other worried expressions before they both slow and sit back on their heels. Michael can't speak, can't move except to wrap his arms tightly around his legs and he doesn't want to look at her anymore because he knows it's not her anymore, but he can't turn his eyes away, and now the numbing blankness is back.

He wants to cry, shriek, wail, but he can't. He can't make any sound, can't do anything but sit and stare. He wonders if maybe this is just a bad nightmare, because nothing feels real, he doesn't understand what's happening, she was supposed to be getting better, this isn't supposed to happen yet, and definitely not when his brother is gone and he's all alone, and he wants so much just to wake up and have things be normal. He closes his eyes and lets his head fall back to bang against the wall behind him, bangs it again and again as he curls his hands into fists, digging his nails into the palms of his hands. He feels the sharp pain and presses harder, hard enough to break the skin, and when he opens his eyes he's still there, sitting and staring at his mother. She's still dead.

One of the paramedics comes over to kneel in front of him and he's speaking softly but Michael can't hear him, can't even see him really because his mother's pale face with dribbles of blood is situated firmly in front of his eyes. He just nods dumbly along with whatever the man is saying and allows himself to be pulled up and led out of the room.

He sits down on the couch in the living room and both paramedics are there, one sitting next to him with a hand that he can't really feel on his shoulder, and the other is pacing back and forth and speaking into a walkie-talkie. Michael lets a few tears spill out, burning a hot trail down his cheek before he wipes quickly at them. The paramedic asks if there's anyone that they can call for him but Michael shakes his head, eyes blurry, and all he can think is that his brother should be here, but he's not. Fear, ugly and aching, starts to well up inside him, and he's thinking again now, thinking if only, if only, if only. If only he'd woken earlier, if only he'd called 911 sooner, if only Lincoln were here, then at least he wouldn't be all alone.

Things are boiling inside him now, and he's feeling angry and scared and things he knows he shouldn't be, but at least he's feeling something. He's furious with Lincoln for not being here and knows that even his brother wouldn't have been able to save her, but he should've been here all the same. He's never been so angry in his life, and certainly not ever at Lincoln, but he hates him a little in this moment.

"Do you want anything? Juice or some milk or something?" The man next to him asks and Michael shakes his head again.

"A social worker is going to come get you," the other man tells him gently. "She's on her way right now, she's going to take care of you."

Michael nods and balls his hands into fists again. He refuses to let any more tears escape, thinks for a desperate moment that he wishes it were yesterday, and suddenly he's angry at the whole world and he wants his mother back more than anything in the world. He's going to rage at Lincoln whenever he finally shows up. He'll yell and curse and hit him and do all the things his mother tells them both not to do because she's gone now and Lincoln isn't here. Michael's alone and he's scared and he doesn't want a social worker, he just wants his family.

The two men keep talking to him, trying to ask him questions and get him to respond but he pays little attention to them, and sinks further and further into himself and his anger. His mother's been dead now for almost an hour and he thinks he should be sad or hurt but he can't feel anything except fury. He feels sick with it, never had such angry thoughts storm through his head before, but he doesn't know what else to do with himself besides plan out all the terrible things he'll say to his brother before never speaking to him again.

He remembers being small and waiting one day after school for his brother to walk home with him, and how he sat outside for three hours before he ventured home on his own, worried about what had happened to Lincoln. How he'd discovered Lincoln leaning against a car in front of their building, smoking with some friends and how hurt he'd been when he realized that his brother had forgotten him. Lincoln had looked stricken when he saw Michael and dashed over to him, swearing he'd never, ever, ever leave him all alone again. Never, he promised.

"Yeah, it's funny, when I was your age the neighborhood around here was all – "

"Michael?" The paramedic's nervous rambling is interrupted by Lincoln's voice and Michael's head shoots up at the sound.

He leaps to his feet and his mouth opens to scream, but before he can get out the words _where were you_ he lets out a sob and a gasp and a hiccup and another sob and Lincoln's running forward to catch him before he falls to a heap on the floor.

"Michael, what, what's, who're, what the hell?" Lincoln's rambling into Michael's hair and Michael's only response is to cry harder and let out a tired wail and Lincoln seems to understand because he clutches his brother harder and starts to cry too.

They sit on the floor in the living room and Lincoln holds onto Michael and Michael holds onto Lincoln and the anger is gone, replaced by pain and fear, and he hurts everywhere and he wants his mother back because this was too soon, too violent, too awful, and he needs her. He shakes as he cries and makes terrible warbling noises, and Lincoln crushes him in his arms.

He's never felt grief like this before and can't imagine that he'll ever feel anything but this excruciating sadness again, but at least his brother's here now, and he swears he'll never, ever, ever let him go.

**-end-**


End file.
